David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and founding member of Wolff & Samson. / Asbury Park Press File Photo

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@MichaelSymons_

TRENTON — Being chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was supposed to be the exclamation point on David Samson’s long, influential public life.

Now, whether he’ll make it to the mid-2016 end of that term is among the biggest question marks in New Jersey politics.

Questions about how and why the Port Authority closed lanes to the George Washington Bridge last September led to sharp focus on the financial gains Samson’s law firm and its lobbying affiliate have made in public affairs-related work in recent years. That spotlight also led to questions about potential conflicts of interest, prompting the filing of an ethics complaint. Even federal prosecutors’ interest was piqued, though it’s not clear if the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark will take its probe in his direction.

Gov. Chris Christie said in late February that he “strongly, firmly” stands by Samson. Certainly the governor places a high value on loyalty, as he stressed multiple times in his news conference Jan. 9, the most recent at which he has taken questions from reporters.

Unless more information is revealed, or the ethics, legislative or federal investigations turn out negatively for Samson, he appears likely to hold on for now.

“There may be a belief on their part that it’s a very rough patch but they may be able to ride it out. That seems to be their strategy at the moment,” said Carl Golden, senior contributing analyst at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey’s William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, who worked in the governors office under Republican Govs. Thomas Kean and Christie Whitman. “Obviously, if something drops out of the sky, it may change all that.”

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Wolff & Samson’s billings from government contracts grew from $2 million in 2008 to nearly $5 million in 2012, driven largely by the firm’s work as counsel to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. Lobbying revenues for the law firm and its public-affairs limited liability company jumped from $196,000 in the four years from 2006 to 2009 to more than $3.7 million in the last four years.

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark are also looking into the bridge incident, as well as claims by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer about state officials tying the award of superstorm Sandy relief funds to the approval of a long-stalled high-rise development project proposed by The Rockefeller Group, which at the time was a client of Wolff & Samson.

The New Jersey Working Families Alliance, a coalition consisting primarily of labor unions and New Jersey Citizen Action, filed a complaint against Samson with the State Ethics Commission alleging that he used his position as Port Authority chairman to benefit law-firm clients including New Jersey Transit, the South Jersey Transportation Authority, PSE&G, BRG Harrison Lofts Urban Renewal LLC and a part-owner of Railroad Construction Company Inc.

Robert Del Tufo, who was New Jersey’s U.S. attorney from 1977 to 1980 and its state attorney general from 1990 to 1993, said Samson may be reluctant to step down, even if that might ease some of the political pressure facing Christie, because of the publicity that would yield and the conclusions some might draw.

“Let me just say that David Samson was and is an effective attorney in New Jersey, but the potential conflicts of interest that he has exhibited on the Port Authority would suggest that his leadership might be compromised,” Del Tufo said. “Just on the basis of the welfare of the Port Authority, he ought to consider alternatives to being chairman.”

Christie and Samson have been friends for more than 10 years, dating to when they served as New Jersey’s top federal and state prosecutors, respectively. Samson served as Christie’s campaign counsel and transition-team chairman in 2009 and has accompanied the governor on some of his out-of-state political trips.

“Obviously they’re close,” Golden said. “There’s loyalty there, and I assume a pretty close personal relationship as well, and those are difficult because if there comes a time when one or the other concludes that it’s necessary to part company, that’s a very difficult choice to make. There’s obviously a strong trust between the two of them, or they wouldn’t be where they are.”

“Loyalty obviously works both ways,” Golden said. “If a governor’s going to be loyal to you, in response to that loyalty you have an obligation to not engage in conduct which is going to be embarrassing or controversial. It would certainly seem the limits of that loyalty are being tested pretty severely at the moment.”